Gardening Advice

This is the time of year when big tubs of fresh chickpeas show up at our local supermarket. They are crunchy, nutty and green, each rattling in its own stiff wooly bubble. At almost $4 a pound a cheapskate like me begins to think of growing them for free. The first year I tried it nothing came up, so the next year I sprouted them for a few days and was rewarded with a thicket of short hardy plants. Their stems are thick and square, standing straight up - the blooms are white with a purple center it's almost black, a target the bees love. The best surprise was that the fuzzy pods coat their hairs with a sour/salty exudation you can lick off your fingers, making them nature's self-salting snack treat. If you have a couple of square feet of garden to spare, try it. I'm sprouting mine now and in a couple of days will plant them. I just use the same kind I cook - they aren't hybridized into some kind of infertile abomination like amaranth and some other grain crops are.